Sheila Fiona Davis

Fiona Davis, a resident of Brooklin, Maine, died peacefully the afternoon of May 13, 2019 on Bainbridge Island in Washington state. For the past two years she had been under the care of daughter Alexa Rosenthal together with Alexa's husband Michael. They supported Fiona with love and courage as she struggled against Alzheimer's disease. Her husband, Henry Davis, was with Fiona throughout.


Fiona was born under the sign of Aquarius in Boston on February 14, 1933 to George T. Rice of Westwood, Massachusetts and Sheila Maude Rice who hailed from the town of Clondalkin just outside Dublin, Ireland. Being an Aquarian, Fiona was known for her intense emotions, her power of intuition. She saw and sensed things that the more
self-centered among us miss.


Fiona put in decades of work first as a volunteer caregiver at the Norwood
Hospital outside Boston and then in a paid position at the Deaconess Hospital in the city. She worked with the elderly and was a strong supporter of the Southern Poverty Law Center as well as Native American causes.


Fiona grew up in Westwood. During her high school years she befriended Becky Davis and through that friendship she met Becky's older brother, a certain Henry Davis, arborist and sailor. They married in 1954 and honeymooned in Brooklin. Adventures�some wanted, some unwanted�followed.


Fiona and Henry supported each other in establishing Lowden Tree Specialists as an arboricultural force in the Boston area. She also joined her husband on ambitious and sometimes unsettling sailing voyages.


Fiona's children remember a wrong turn along the Intracoastal Waterway putting Fiona and her family in a North Carolina swamp. They remember the dark night Fiona and her husband navigated the inlet at Ocean City, Maryland in a gale in their 32-foot ketch. They remember Fiona tossing luggage out of an overloaded single engine plane as it struggled during take off.


Fiona and Henry's sailing ventures expanded with trips across the Atlantic, up the Seine, and down the coast of Africa that included an extended journey up the River Gambia. In the 1980s Fiona sailed with Henry across the Pacific to Japan, China, and New Guinea. In the 1990s things settled a bit when she spent more time in Brooklin, a happy eye-opening realm for her seven grandchildren. In the early 2000s, Fiona and
Henry ventured up the Hudson into the Great Lakes making the upper reaches of Lake Superior.


Fiona loved novels, movies, and the Tijuana Brass. She practiced Transcendental Meditation before it became popular. She was known for her unique brand of humor and fashion sense. She was also known for periodic misbehavior in Montreal with her dear friend Sally Drummond. But all this pales before Fiona's essential dignity and generous heart.


Fiona was predeceased by her parents and infant daughter Sheila Victoria Davis. Her husband, Henry, survives Fiona along with three children: Hank Davis (Tracy Spencer) of Brooklin, ME; Tony Davis (Robin) of Orleans, MA; Alexandra Davis Rosenthal (Michael) of Bainbridge Island, WA. Her grandchildren will feel her loss in the deepest way: Julian Davis, Vesta Davis, Brooke Davis Capuano, Skye Davis, and Luc, Jesse, and Wyatt Rosenthal.


The family is indebted to Heather Mathews and Darryl Rodgers for the care they provided Fiona during her last years in Brooklin. We will not forget the love and support provided to Fiona by Samantha Williams and the caregivers at the Madrona House on Bainbridge Island. The caregiving profession often goes undervalued. It should not. Fiona we know would agree.


Condolences may be sent to Henry Davis, Madrona House #242, 8810 Madison
Ave. N., Bainbridge Island, WA. 98110. Donations in Fiona's name may be given to The Tree of Life Food Pantry, PO Box 1329, Blue Hill, ME. 04614.


Arrangements are entrusted to Cook Family Funeral Home.